Facebook’s Extensive Surveillance Network

Consumer Reports is reporting that Facebook has built a massive surveillance network:

Using a panel of 709 volunteers who shared archives of their Facebook data, Consumer Reports found that a total of 186,892 companies sent data about them to the social network. On average, each participant in the study had their data sent to Facebook by 2,230 companies. That number varied significantly, with some panelists’ data listing over 7,000 companies providing their data. The Markup helped Consumer Reports recruit participants for the study. Participants downloaded an archive of the previous three years of their data from their Facebook settings, then provided it to Consumer Reports.

This isn’t data about your use of Facebook. This data about your interactions with other companies, all of which is correlated and analyzed by Facebook. It constantly amazes me that we willingly allow these monopoly companies that kind of surveillance power.

Here’s the Consumer Reports study. It includes policy recommendations:

Many consumers will rightly be concerned about the extent to which their activity is tracked by Facebook and other companies, and may want to take action to counteract consistent surveillance. Based on our analysis of the sample data, consumers need interventions that will:

  • Reduce the overall amount of tracking.
  • Improve the ability for consumers to take advantage of their right to opt out under state privacy laws.
  • Empower social media platform users and researchers to review who and what exactly is being advertised on Facebook.
  • Improve the transparency of Facebook’s existing tools.

And then the report gives specifics.

Tags: , , , , , ,

Posted on February 1, 2024 at 7:06 AM • 48 Comments

Comments

Jan Doggen • February 1, 2024 8:22 AM

And use the Facebook Container plugin in your browser.

“Facebook Container works by isolating your Facebook identity into a separate container that makes it harder for Facebook to track your visits to other websites with third-party cookies.”

cmeier • February 1, 2024 8:24 AM

Pot, kettle, black. CR shares info “with various third parties” and requires you to opt-out. How does the statement go: If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

Disclosure of Information
We may share information within the Consumer Reports family and with various third parties, including:

With our authorized service providers
When you make a donation
When you enter a sweepstakes or contest
When you submit a user review
For direct-mail campaigns
With policymakers when you take action on a policy issue
With manufacturers, regulators, researchers and other third parties to help improve the marketplace
To protect our websites and users
When required by law

See: CR Privacy Policy

Peter Gerdes • February 1, 2024 8:28 AM

People seem to find this quite worrying but I don’t think they’ve really thought through the threat models. In particular, it shouldn’t matter that some companies analyze the info they have to serve ads and others don’t. The fact that Facebook does analyze their data for ads doesn’t make them any more threatening than Amazon who could decide — screw these rules were breaking open all our cloud servers and scraping it for info about you — not to mention anyone you shared location data with or non-encrypted backups.

It’s the existence of your digital breadcrumbs not Facebook using them to serve some ads which is the concern.

TebbN • February 1, 2024 8:37 AM

a heavily biased, non-random, self-selected “panel of 709 volunteers” has NO statistical nor objective validity — it is Disinformation/Gossip

Clive Robinson • February 1, 2024 8:46 AM

@ Bruce,

Re : The power of none.

“It constantly amazes me that we willingly allow these monopoly companies that kind of surveillance power.”

Which raises,

1, Who are the “we”?
2, What power do they have?

As far as I can tell in the US a corporate is alowed to do as it pleases when it pleases regardless of if it is legal or not.

So if they illegaly collect data, illegally send it out of jurisdiction then profit by it in some way.

What “power do the we” have to stop it?

To which the answer appears little or none whilst the only punishment those who have any power to act, impose what are in real terms not even token fines, that are effrctively tax deductable.

Further what “power do the we” have against their employers or others who insist that the “we” participate in such systems?

It’s now rigged even by the US Inland Revenue that you have to take part through third parties that collect and sell the “we’s” data.

Look at,

1, any Health Care contract
2, any financial services contract

Etc etc etc

The “we” either play by the “corporate” rules or their not playing becomes regarded as a criminal act…

echo • February 1, 2024 9:16 AM

A reminder that a court found the UK government processing sensitive data in the US was unlawful… There has been some ding dong over this but it remains true that sensitive data processed in the US essentially becomes that companies property or via that company the NSA et al.

NHS data being licenced to Palantir? The current Tory regime are crooks and it’s well known their relationship with the law is sketchy at best. If it’s not Sunak dipping his fingers in the till it’s the rest of them with lucrative “consultancies” on the side or the well worn pay-off after leaving public office. We all know how that works!

If anyone thinks search engine inquiries and location isn’t passed on up the chain for espionage reasons they’re daydreaming. Knowing who is meeting who or what subject they are researching can be worth billions in the right hands as Boeing and Airbus know, and any patent lawyer worth their salt.

As for Facebook any company which hires Nick Clegg as an “ethics advisor” is a joke. He’s in the job as a wriggly amoral PR guy and everyone knows it.

To fix problems articulated in this and previous topics the US either needs constitutional amendments or federal law and certainly regulations to put human rights at the centre of things. That would solve a lot of problems and make a few of the loudest egos holding public office *&%$ several tons worth of bricks as well as ruin a few dodgy business models as other have alluded. And if they didn’t like it they could bog off to Russia where they belong.

Q • February 1, 2024 9:22 AM

Anyone that cares to look can see all the JS code the FB tracking pixel has. Those third-party sites choose to include it on their web pages, but ultimately it is FB that controls the code behind it, and it is FB that decides which data to take (i.e. all of it). And they use your browser, and your resources, to collect it all.

Disable all FB domains from downloading and/or executing JS. Additionally, disable all iFrame elements.

Better still, disable al JS everywhere, no exception. If you do this, and combine that with iFrame blocks, then the web become quick and easy to use. Some sites are unusable, which I consider to be their loss. I feel no sense of loss about missing out upon their shenanigans. I don’t suffer from FOMO. I embrace the JOMO.

For me these two simple actions bring back the web of information. And it eliminates the web of spying, manipulation and coercion. Companies need to earn the privilege of collecting my data, they don’t get to take it as it pleases them.

Clive Robinson • February 1, 2024 9:50 AM

@ ALL,

Re : The power of none.

There is a song from several decades ago made popular by Tennessee Earnie Ford. Written by Merle Travis it’s called “Sixteen tons” and it in turn is a little bit about the history of labour employment in the Americas[1].

The first verse and chorus tell you much,

“Some people say a man is made out of mud.
A poor man’s made out of muscle and blood,
Muscle and blood and skin and bones,
A mind that’s a-weak and a back that’s strong.

You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter, don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go…
I owe my soul to the company store”

The ways certain people will use every trick to go back to.

These corporates see you as their property by default, and they regard any attempt by you at evading their surveillance and profit by it as being theft from their rightfull entitlement.

You might not like being told this, you might say “that ain’t so” but as an outsider looking in the top of the barrel not from the bottem looking up, I can tell you that,

Like it or not, that is the way it is.

It’s up to you to change it, but history tells us that the self entitled will use every trick of enslavement and worse…

“To stop what they claim as their stock not being bled for their gain”.

In the past this has involved the use of “Private Violence” these days they use the “Guard labour payed for by the public purse” such is their claim of self entitlement.

[1] As with any song popular enough to have become a culrural item it has a Wikipedia page,

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixteen_Tons

Whilst it only mentions the social history behind it in a couple of lines they link off to articles on the oppresive work systems employed. It does not take much to see these creeping back into labour employment in the America’s and other places.

Eric Burdon noted for his gravely voice, in the 1990’s put a version on his album “American Dream”. He actually recorded it originally for the twee film “Joe versus the Volcano” but it’s still a good tune for it’s then “up beat” time, and you can find both versions up on YouTube,

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=E6m1qgnUw74

echo • February 1, 2024 10:19 AM

https://twitter.com/jason_kint/status/1752713508364394954

Mark Zuckerberg, on behalf of his products, primarily Instagram and Facebook, faces the full Senate Judiciary Cmte now along with four other CEOs (three under subpoena) for harming children. This is how it has begun, “Mr Zuckerberg…you have blood on your hands. /1

[…]

[THREAD]

https://www.youtube.com/live/HUjv2Ky7PcM
Senate hearing LIVE: Mark Zuckerberg, social media CEOs testify

The US Senate Judiciary Committee holds a hearing on the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis with Big Tech CEOs. Witnesses include Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Meta, Linda Yaccarino, Chief Executive Officer, X Corp, Evan Spiegel, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Snap Inc., Shou Chew, Chief Executive Officer, TikTok Inc. and Jason Citron, Chief Executive Officer, Discord Inc

https://twitter.com/jason_kint/status/1749193105750839374
woah, most redactions just now removed in the New Mexico attorney general’s complaint vs instagram and facebook. it is even more shocking, infuriating and stomach turning to see what has now been lifted (in yellow).

“a 2021 presentation estimated 100,000 children per day…” /1

[…]

[THREAD]

Enjoy watching some “masters of the universe” bricking it. Some of the lifted court redactions are hair raising. God knows what the text says which is still redacted.

A few social media platforms definitely have blood on their hands especially with respect to far right radicalisation. The evidence piling up against the role of social media platforms and some politicians and media and domestic terrorists especially targeting the LGBT space is wince inducing. Women who are politically targeted can have it very rough too.

Undue influence on elections and fueling the far right generally is another big problem.

anonymous • February 1, 2024 10:41 AM

It certainly doesn’t help that nearly every website in the world (including THIS one, Bruce) willingly adds in Facebook/Meta contamination. Not to mention Google “services.”

emily’s post • February 1, 2024 10:51 AM

Red: “ethics advisor”

20 th century (late) term meaning one who provides guidance on rhetoric for being able to convincingly, especially publicly, call evil good. See in commerce, medicine, politics etc.

See also rhetorical obfuscation principles of replacing primary characteristics by secondary characteristics, and self advantageous choice of alternative in equivocation.

SocraticGadfly • February 1, 2024 11:17 AM

What Jan said up top.

On FB itself I use Facebook Purity.

On Firefox in general I have Facebook Connect, Privacy Badger and other add-ons.

MK • February 1, 2024 11:56 AM

@SocraticGadfly

We used to identify military sites by radio: They are the places with no RF emissions.

Ray Dillinger • February 1, 2024 11:56 AM

I have never had a facebook account. I have never given facebook a permission of any kind.

It would be interesting to see how much data facebook has accumulated about me. All of it, obviously, would have to be either purchased from other companies or based on the facebook interactions of others.

It would be even more interesting to know how many times facebook has sold that data.

lurker • February 1, 2024 12:12 PM

The study was done with self-selected self-confessed Facebook participants. It would be interesting to compare with subjects who do not participate in FB. I believe there are sufficient to be statistically significant.

I do not willningly engage with FB, ever since witnessing Mr Z’s low moral standards at the beginning in 2003, and still on display this week in front of Congress. The FB tracker pixel is just one example.

JonKnowsNothing • February 1, 2024 1:16 PM

@ Ray Dillinger, All

re:
I have never had a facebook account. I have never given facebook a permission of any kind.

It would be interesting to see how much data facebook has accumulated about me.

You can be certain they know a lot about you, especially if you have “friends” that continue to use the FB platform. Lots of social groups and special interest groups use FB for their organizations and event calendar activities.

They don’t necessarily have to buy the information, for example they can use the group id feature in many photo systems that allow pictures to be broadcast to the group if their face is found in the picture.

Example

* an office party lunch out

* someone snaps a picture of the event with everyone having a great bonus lunch

* the image is sent via corporate mail or direct msg to all the people at the lunch

* that same image might end up in a corporate “we are a great place to work” ad, implying that you get a free lunch regularly.

* a person in the group sends the image on to other friends with “here’s the folks I work with”, and they begin the “whisper game” with the image getting forward on

The information contained in the image via the EXIF data plus the added name tags and ID-Squares created by the original photographer, give precise data of where you were, what you ate, who you ate with, what you look like.

6 Handshakes is likely to take only 2 or maybe 3 before you are “attached to their data repository”

===

ht tps:/ /en. wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_whispers

  • Chinese whispers (some Commonwealth English), or telephone (American English and Canadian English), is an internationally popular children’s game in which messages are whispered from person to person and then the original and final messages are compared.
  • This sequential modification of information is called transmission chaining in the context of cultural evolution research, and is primarily used to identify the type of information that is more easily passed on from one person to another.

ht tps:/ /en .wiki pedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation

  • Six degrees of separation is the idea that all people are six or fewer social connections away from each other. As a result, a chain of “friend of a friend” statements can be made to connect any two people in a maximum of six steps. It is also known as the six handshakes rule.

h ttps:/ /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handshaking_lemma

  • In graph theory, a branch of mathematics, the handshaking lemma is the statement that, in every finite undirected graph, the number of vertices that touch an odd number of edges is even.
  • For example, if there is a party of people who shake hands, the number of people who shake an odd number of other people’s hands is even.
  • The handshaking lemma is a consequence of the degree sum formula, also sometimes called the handshaking lemma, according to which the sum of the degrees (the numbers of times each vertex is touched) equals twice the number of edges in the graph. Both results were proven by Leonhard Euler (1736) in his famous paper on the Seven Bridges of Königsberg that began the study of graph theory.

mario • February 1, 2024 1:40 PM

Users are not the Customers for Facebook company, the advertisers are the paying customers. Users are the product that the company sell.

I don’t understand all the discussions about the privacy of the users.
Stop using it, choose something else. It is the only power that customers have.

Clive Robinson • February 1, 2024 2:38 PM

@ lurker, ALL,

Re : You are even if you think not.

“It would be interesting to compare with subjects who do not participate in FB. I believe there are sufficient to be statistically significant.”

What do you mean by “do not participate in FB”?

If you go to any website with a FaceBook logo, the chances are it has a lot of data grabbing javascript behind it that slurps up anything it can and “sends it back to the mothership” one way or another.

Using the Internet like a normal person almost certainly makes you a “participant” unless you take a lot of extra preventative steps (which can be hard enough for experts in Op-Sec to follow and stick to).

But also if those that know you are stupid enough to mention you or tag you in an image then “you’ve been participated” and there is little you can do.

More than a quater century ago I had a major falling out with part of my family because they sent my details to a loonie religion based next door to the NSA site in Utah. I’ve never forgiven them nor will I ever do so. They were told I did not want my details sent off, in their stupidity they ignored my telling them not just “no” but the reasons why I said “No”.

As the old saying –1862 or earlier– has it,

“Stupid is as stupid does”

Thus in the past,

“Behave like a(n) XXX get treated like a(n) XXX.”

Where XXX could be clown, criminal, fool, idiot, traitor, etc… ie a very long list of human often grevious failings. Was seen as a justified comment.

But with hundreds if not now thousands of psychologists, psychiatrists and worse being paid fortunes to come up with ways to hide the manipulation of people from the people since the 1980’s it’s almost impossible to lead anything close to a “now normal” life without inadvertently becoming ensared in US Mega Corp webs.

As thos Silicon Valley Mega Corps appeare to be the only thing that the US Economy spins around these days, as far as legislators are concerned even though they have gone beyond “Too Big to Fail” into some “Existential to the American Dream” zone that’s OK…

So don’t be surprised if the US declares war on any Soverign Nation for a “bomb back to the stone ages with itemized 90day to pay bill” treatment simply because that Soverign Nation actually puts a serious dent in those Mega-Corps, thus holes in US legislators pockets.

Ever wonder why the Zuckerberg “has no neighbours?”[1] it’s because he knows there are sufficient people that would give him “high velocity lead poisoning”, or if they could, kidnap him for ransom or just a little “nut spinning” revenge etc.

Also look into Bill Gates underground complexes stocked for “doomsday”… Where his idea of doomsday might not be the same as yours.

Likewise other Tech-Bro multi-billionairs who now have land in “the last bus stop to the south pole” and second nationality to just “drop-in” if and when required.

From a “game theory” perspective they are not “paranoid conspiracy nuts” but actually “rational actors” as many have more wealth and power than those questionable heads of state…

Let’s be honest how would you behave if you awoke in your bed to find some “alleged nut job” standing by / sitting on it[2]?

It was a time shortly after when alledged ex UK millitary “special forces” went after those abroad[3] for reasons that on balance were probably paid for by those seaking publicity stunts to fill newspapers with “Positive Political News” (see Princrss Margeret getting grabbed by a man in a Wolf Suit who was actually payed by a Daily Mail Employee to do so).

[1] Dress it up how you want,

https://investguiding-com.custommapposter.com/article/mark-zuckerberg-buys-up-all-the-properties-around-his-house

The fact is the “privacy” of his ten homes is a “Protection” / “buffer” zone to keep the crazies away from poping him and potentially give security a “kill zone” that would have to be crossed by any potential crazies or more organised hostiles with intent.

[2] It happend to the UK’s Queen Elisabeth II back in Summer 1982, and some stories say he sat on the bed others say he did not,

https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/drama/the-crown-michael-fagan-real-life/

[3] Ronnie Biggs one of the minors in the Great Train Robbery had escaped abroad a decade or so before, and had a child in Brazil that put him beyond “extradition”. These were times when “Thatcher” was starting to become “Mad Maggie” with a succession of “might is right” court cases that went wrong and some times hilariously so…

Any way there were several kidnap attempts on Ronnie, that were poorly planed and executed, suggesting those involved were not the brightest light bulbs in the corridor…

https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2013/mar/25/ronnie-biggs-train-robbery-kidnap

OldGuy • February 1, 2024 6:06 PM

Then Microsoft looked at Facebook,
and said “Hold my Beer”.

Seriously, has anyone looked into what Microsoft’s doing these days? Everything I hear just creeps me out more. Be it secretly replacing Chrome with Edge, complete with all your Chrome tabs opened in Edge, or scanning your hard drive to see what software they can sell you, or requiring you to complete a questionnaire whenever you run competing software products, etc, etc, etc.

Facebook is scary, even if you don’t use Facebook they are scary, but when it’s your OS and you’re required to sign up for an online account and sign away all your rights just to log in the first time… That’s worse.

pup vas • February 1, 2024 6:53 PM

What to do if someone makes a deepfake of you
https://mashable.com/article/ai-deepfake-porn-what-victims-can-do

=After all, if social media platforms can’t protect one of the world’s most famous people from deepfake abuse, they certainly don’t guarantee safety for unknown users, who can’t lean on lawyers, publicists, and a fervent fan base for help.

Adam Dodge, a licensed attorney and founder of Ending Tech-Enabled Abuse (EndTAB), says the lack of safeguards, regulation, and robust legal protection puts victims, who are consistently women, in the position of managing the fallout of non-consensual explicit or pornographic deepfake images and videos that feature their likeness.

Dodge argues that burdening an already traumatized person with these tasks only magnifies the violation she’s experienced. But unfortunately, doing it yourself is currently the main way to handle deepfake abuse.

Currently, Dodge says that the majority of AI image-based abuse happens mostly through two mediums.

One type is perpetrated through apps that enable users to take an existing image of someone and turn that into a fake nude using the app’s AI-powered algorithm.

The second type of abuse is generated by deepfake face-swapping apps, which can superimpose someone’s face onto a preexisting pornographic image or video. Though fake, the resulting image or video is surprisingly realistic.

A growing type of abuse can be traced back to text-image generators, which are capable of turning word prompts into fake nude or explicit images. (Mashable is not publishing the names of these apps due to concerns over further publicizing them for perpetrators.)=

Five steps to handle deepfake provided in the article for victims. See inside.

lurker • February 1, 2024 7:00 PM

@Clive Robinson
‘What do you mean by “do not participate in FB”?’

I am not a card carrying signed on member of FB. Yes, I know about the trackers’r’us all over the ‘net; and I know what loose lips from those you thought you loved, can do.

But also if those that know you are stupid enough to mention you or tag you in an image then “you’ve been participated” and there is little you can do.

It is my forlorn hope that a court of law might regard this as hearsay, or at worst circumstantial evidence. Meanwhile those card carrying signed on members will have much much more hard nailed down facts on their personal lives in Mr Z’s clutch.

echo • February 1, 2024 11:38 PM

I just watched a very upsetting video of a MAGA woman realising she had been conned by grifters.

Whether it’s social media streamers, or people selling their services, or politicians right to the top some are the worst of ideologues and some are caught up in an ecosystem and some are outright amoral grifters. The US constitution facilitates this and bad actors have learned how to exploit it. US citizens are learning how few safeguards there are in practice.

The US constitution and regulation enables huge monopolies which are the end result of a very Darwinian feeding frenzy between market capture and initial funding, and wide latitude with speculative activities at the bottom. One (arguably positive) example of this is the construction of “the bomb” which ended the war in Asia. Fast forward to today and you have a mechanism which encourages then normalises abuse and violence and industrialises genocidal inclinations which starts it all off again.

On the precautionary principle I would be inclined to shut down data gathering. There is some merit in an advertising industry which has to work with general populations with regulated gatekeepers managing messages. It’s just too dangerous a tool in the wrong hands.

Let’s not forget the key roles by London based companies like Cambridge Analytica and PR-legal firms who sell themselves as “lobbyists” and “reputation managers” not to mention the “asset managers” fronting tax havens and money laundering. Those large period offices in side streets with luxury cars a suitable distance away from away from high foot traffic areas don’t exist because people just happen to like them.

The radicalisation pipeline ends with people like this lady who was conned. In the worst case scenario it ends with the likes of Zuckerberg et all filling the second row in Nuremberg assuming he doesn’t get done by the forces he enabled into power in first.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/ellen-feldman-nazi-germany
The Jews Who Fought for Nazi Germany

https://www.jstor.org/stable/4397988
Politics of Gender: Women in Nazi Germany

https://daily.jstor.org/ernst-rohm-the-highest-ranking-gay-nazi/
Ernst Röhm, The Highest-Ranking Gay Nazi

Clive Robinson • February 2, 2024 12:30 AM

@ lurker,

“I am not a card carrying signed on member of FB.”

Hmm a comparison to “One Party States” of often fascist behaviours.

If only they could be considered that benicifent…

I tend to regard it more as a seriously dangerous religious cult with all the trapings of psychological “mind control”. Where emotional blackmail is “so yesterday” because of the resorces required for “personal attention”.

They have in effect reinvented “Sending to Coventry” a process of ostracism or more modern ghosting that has the traits of the “Silent Treatment” and “Stealth / Shadow banning”. Two newer terms / varients are “orbiting” and “Breadcrumbing”.

They are all forms of “control freekery” abuse like earlier times “Passive agressive behaviour”. but in an online world with “centralised systems” can be very very low resource. As Twitter under old managment got outed for doing, it just needs a single bit per user and a fairly simple algorithm.

It’s also a reason why some claim the likes of Minecraft, Mastadon, Discord and even MUDs form a more encopassing less controling potential due to what is a Distributed or Federated network where “central control” is eliminated or significantly reduced thus giving alternatives to avoid abuse.

But back in 2017 the “Harvard Business Review” showed that these goals of centralized social media often lead to significant negative consequences on the user[1] even without the ostracism systems being used. They showed that use of Facebook in particular has been linked with lower levels of well-being, with mental health being shown to markedly decrease due to the use of Facebook.

[1] In,

Holly Shakya, Nicholas Christakis : “A New, More Rigorous Study Confirms: The More You Use Facebook, the Worse You Feel” : Harvard Business Review, Apr 2017.

“Research has long suggested that social media can be harmful to users’ wellbeing. But past studies have often failed to acknowledge people’s baseline sociability or social media usage levels.”

https://hbr.org/2017/04/a-new-more-rigorous-study-confirms-the-more-you-use-facebook-the-worse-you-feel

ROBERT CHEHEY • February 2, 2024 12:34 AM

It amazes me how much people want their lives hidden. What the heck are you up to? Sure, I hate ads and sales pitches as much as you do but that’s capitalism.

JonKnowsNothing • February 2, 2024 1:31 AM

@ROBERT CHEHEY, All

re: I hate ads and sales pitches as much as you do but that’s capitalism.

Ah… No…

Capitalism is about Open and Free Market Competition between providers of goods and services. It has nothing really to do with Marketing, it has some impact on Sales.

fyi Marketing and Sales are different

  • Marketing is the act of satisfying and retaining customers
  • Sales are activities related to selling or the number of goods sold in a given targeted time period.

It does get confusing because the word “Market” in included in the phrase, but “Free Market” refers to the group of sellers of a particular item(s) and does not refer to the retention of customers.

A Free Market example tl;dr

3 providers of apples come to a square to sell their produce.

Each provider has to determine what price they want for their apples.

The customers have to decide if they are willing to pay that price.

Market Price Elasticity or In-elasticity determines if the price drops or goes up.

* If it’s holiday time and everyone is making apple pies, the demand (customers) is high and they will bid up the price for the apples.

* If it’s off season, perhaps no customers come to buy and the price drops. If the item is desirable, at some point customers will buy.

There is no outside influence on the pricing and the items are freely available for anyone to buy.

Our Current Global Restricted Market example tl;dr

3 providers of apples come to a square to sell their produce.

Each provider has a different type of apple: green, red, yellow.

Since there is only 1 provider for each type of apple, they have greater control in pricing.

Customers who are in need of one type of apple have no other option.

Further, the 3 farmers go to the government and lobby for a law that says only they can provide apples, and only they can provide apples in any market, and only they can grow the apples and no one is allowed to import apples. Anyone attempting to grow their own apple tree will have it cut down.

Capitalism is not about privacy.

Privacy has become a commodity for sale, in countries that allow privacy to be sold. You cannot sell your own privacy. It is taken from you by others and sold by them. You get nothing from the repeat sale of your privacy. You have little or no control over who, where or when your privacy is sold and no control over who buys it.

It’s very difficult to recover your privacy because it has already been sold on globally. It’s not yours anymore. And you cannot know where to find it. Unlike your shadow, it has gone to somebody else.

lurker • February 2, 2024 2:04 AM

@Clive Robinson, ALL
“The More You Use Facebook, the Worse You Feel”

This was baked in right from Day One. The Wikipedia page on “History of Facebook” seems to have lost a couple of sentences about Facemash. Mr Z himself disowned Facemash as a precursor of Facebook in 2018

The claim that Facemash was somehow connected to the development of Facebook, it isn’t, it wasn’t … it actually has nothing to do with Facebook.” [1]

The Harvard Administrative Board charged him with privacy and copyright violations back then in 2003. The result of those charges is apparently under NDA, but the student newspaper the Crimson published what it could.[2] In gratitude Z is alleged to have used the “wrong” passwords from failed FB logins to hack the email accts of Crimson reporters. And it just keeps on going downhill …

[1] ‘https://www.metro.us/everything-to-know-about-facemash-the-site-zuckerberg-created-in-college-to-rank-hot-women/

[2] ‘https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/11/19/facemash-creator-survives-ad-board-the/

ResearcherZero • February 2, 2024 5:12 AM

Facebook is building profiles on people by collecting data from outside Facebook use, such as purchases in physical stores and other activity. Reading the report itself gives a better understanding of the nature of the more insidious nature of Facebook, which gives it an even greater insight into people’s lives than even the brokers and companies providing the data. This was the intention of Facebook from the it’s inception.

Facebook collects this data regardless if consumers sign up or not.

The way it is done makes it extremely difficult to proactively avoid such collection.

Instead of the name of the company that supplied the data, Facebook uses a string that is not easily identifiable for the average person if they were to request their data. This makes it difficult for consumers to identify where and how their data is collected.

ResearcherZero • February 2, 2024 5:34 AM

It is constantly collecting and scraping via all means possible into it’s giant vault.

Even if you block Facebook’s crawlers, widgets, tracking technology, and isolate your data, never interact with it, and have never registered, Facebook simply purchases your data from somewhere else in order to profit from it’s vast commoditization of your data.

Physical kidnap like the Stasi employed is far less profitable and time consuming.

‘https://www.spymuseum.org/exhibition-experiences/about-the-collection/collection-highlights/stasi-scent-jars/

Clive Robinson • February 2, 2024 6:34 AM

@ ResearcherZero, ALL,

Re : Available Resources.

“Physical kidnap like the Stasi employed is far less profitable and time consuming.”

It also requires different resources which were always in actual short supply.

Thus to conserve resources “Overt Terror” was a very standard Stasi tactic as it was known that this would get out and be spread about. Thus have a life of it’s own, and like freezing fog would get everywhere and have a significant chilling effect.

The stolen underware in knock-off “kilner preserving jars”[1] was part of this, and it was reworked just over a decade and a half ago in the long reunified Germany,

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6683803.stm

It was at this time that doubt was cast as to if it was ever an effective tactic or almost “Make Work” that served an entirely different purpose. Because human sent basically “breaks down” or becomes otherwise ineffective fairly rapidly as the unique identifier part of human scent results from the persons “active biome” or activity of bacteria in the gut etc.

However knowing that someone has taken such intimate items from your life, especially as clothing was scarce in East Germany and it’s loss obvious, can as we know from studies of criminal activity in the UK and other Western Nations have decidedly harmfull effect on someones mental well being –especially women–. Way way beyond the cost of replacment of such items, it was and still would be a device of mental / psychological abuse.

[1] You can see the genuine Kilner Jars at,

https://www.kilnerjar.co.uk/products/clip-top-jars/

Two things to note,

1, The great similarity between the items shown in the Museum and Kilners jars.
2, The small differences that reveal the jars not to be from Kilner but cheaper “knock-offs”.

Further it needs to be noted that the silicon rubber seals used on such jars will “out-gas” various “oils” or “VOCs” into the jar if there is negative presure (which there would be as weather cycled). With food especially strongly flavourd food this does not matter, especially as the human sense of smell/taste is low. Which is why sometimes paraffin wax would be floated on top as part of the preserving process as an extra seal on some food items immersed in liquid as the taste cross-contamination realy would not be noticed. But with items of clothing and dogs, such smell contamination considerations have to be taken into account.

PaulBart • February 2, 2024 8:09 AM

@Aaron
In the digital world if something is free it means you are the product being sold.

Unfortunately, people believe they do not have pay. That all is an entitlement. Housing, food, healthcare, let someone else pay, it is my right to free stuff.

The “we’s” get to choose
1) Youtube, free with ads and tracking
2) Youtube, paywalled.

But they want this:
Youtube, free. Instagram, free…etc.

Now CR, which is not free, well, if I am paying, guess I can take my dollars elsewhere.

Robin • February 2, 2024 8:40 AM

@PaulBart, All,

“Unfortunately, people believe they do not have pay. That all is an entitlement.”

Not so clear-cut, IMO. To reduce it to naively simple options, I don’t mind seeing adverts on products that are free to use: developers, et al, need to earn a living. There are several sites and a few apps that I am happy to use for “free” at the expense of seeing ads.

What I do not accept is that prodigious amounts of data are collected about me, without my awareness or consent, and used to build profiles of me, my contacts, my neighbours and my demographic and to have those data and profiles used to undermine democracy and other wider personal and social freedoms such as the rights of privacy, anonymity, free speech.

JonKnowsNothing • February 2, 2024 8:54 AM

@ PaulBart, @Aaron, All

re: people believe they do not have pay. That all is an entitlement.

A small NO to this loaded statement.

(USA) Our current form of government mandates that business must provide all services to the public.

Our military is professional but supplied entirely by businesses. Boots, uniforms and guns all come from the private sector, even though the function of the military is determined by the government.

The infrastructure of the internet in the USA is all built by private enterprise but is paid for through government contracts by USA Tax Dollars. It is not funded by shareholders or the EMusk Tech Bros. Everything is paid for by US; not by private enterprise.

Like our military support systems, private companies get large contracts, monopolies, functional monopolies and huge payments to build all the infrastructure in the USA. From roads, to utility poles, to power plants, in one form or another WE paid for it all.

It isn’t FREE. It’s PAID FOR. It’s PAID in FULL.

For the internet corporations, they want customers to pay over again and again and again for these same fully paid for items.

There is some merit to the concept of “content”, however, huge swaths of content are not created by corporations but by individuals. Corporations lay claim to this content, which they take for FREE.

So, your statement needs a small reversal

  • CORPORATIONS believe they do not have pay. Their entitlement is a belief that CORPORATIONS can continue to acquire items for no charge and get paid extra from tax dollars for doing so.

Winter • February 2, 2024 10:10 AM

@JonKnowsNothing

It isn’t FREE. It’s PAID FOR. It’s PAID in FULL.

Indeed, but the likes of PaulBart do not believe in “Public Goods” paid for by the community (taxes). These people think it is a sin, or even a crime, if someone benefits from a public good without paying at a toll-booth.

For the internet corporations, they want customers to pay over again and again and again for these same fully paid for items.

I think the metaphor Bruce uses is a better one:
Internet corporations are feudal fiefdoms, where the consumers are the serfs.

lurker • February 2, 2024 12:37 PM

@Robin

What I do not accept is that prodigious amounts of data are collected about me, without my awareness or consent, and […] used to undermine democracy and other wider personal and social freedoms …

Welcome to the Brave New World. Some believe it will all end badly. I’m an optimist, I expect the data miners will be on the second ship, along with the hairdressers and telephone sanitizers and …

‘https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy_(TV_series)
[Fit the Sixth]

Clive Robinson • February 2, 2024 5:16 PM

@ PaulBart,

Re : Mer-cons are dumb as stumps.

“They are forced to pay for their government propaganda and then they wear it as a badge(though stinky) of honor.”

All Governments collect taxes and use some percentage to fund propaganda, directly or indirectly.

Look at the issues with “Press Barrons” and the current Murdoch Empire to see this in progress.

The licencing system came about in the same way that the postal system and the telegraph and phone systems did.

The reasons are very basically two fold,

1, A communal good has to have fair distribution.
2, A communal good has to be paid for by the community equitably.

The Postal system for instance, not organised as a communal benifit in some way is always a disaster unless there is some mechanism to prevent it being so.

Likewise telephone systems.

The total mess and avarice that is US broadcaating and cable provision is almost the worst possible outcome you can find in a modern republic that espouses democracy for all.

Remember though it should have been mentioned when you were in school “Democracy” is not just about “One Person on Vote” it is even more about everyone having “equitable access” to what makes a society possible.

As I’ve mentioned before, disease is no respector of politics, power, or wealth. If there is disease it spreads where ever it can, thus the more susceptable hosts around you the more likely you are to become infected.

One solution to limit disease is to ensure,

“Clean supply and clean removal.”

That is ensuring water is clean and not just safe but fit to drink, likewise food. But also the waste of consumption is safely taken away and disposed of.

The cost of “safe” is high, and blatant profiteering by gate keeping just increases prices whilst having an extreamly adverse effect on safety for all, not just some self entitled people who put status and it’s accompanying stupidity as their highest atainment in life.

In Rome for instance it was decreed that certain colours and dress styles denoted your position in the “Cast System”.

Rome failed because of it’s cast system. Where ever you go cast systems fail usually by bitter civil conflict or conflict imposed from outside that happens because of “the streets are paved with gold” myth or similar nonsense such as the American Dream.

Just recently we’ve seen the stupidity of neo-con thinking with all the “Supply Chain Security” issues where “security” in all senses has been compromised because of neo-con mantras.

I could go through explaining why the “economic models” espoused in the US are not just wrong but biased by corruption of “propaganda” pushed out by neo-con mantras and behaviours. But I suspect from your history of comments you are so cognatively biased that you do not even realise just how harmful your views are to you yourself…

I will simply point out somethings and hope that you will think on them,

1, Everything in modern life is based on society and common goods, without exception.

2, Without some level of society humanity can not survive.

3, Humanity can not survive without equitable behaviours.

Thus you have to consider what that actually means not just for you who is 100% dependent on society, but every other member of society in a “resource limited environment”.

One such result is you realise that the American Dream is about theft and murder and the way to use them by a very few against the greater masses, but those few can not survive without the greater masses.

But to make it easy for you, what is a simple sound bite you can try and understand,

‘Human exisyance is all about the equitable balance of,

“Individual Rights v. Social Responsability”‘

If you do not understand that, then your life and that of those that come after you will become a failure.

Thus the “Ultimate Question” of “Life the Universe and everything” for an individual with agency is,

“Are you a failure, and why did you chose to become so?”

Robin • February 3, 2024 7:24 AM

@Lurker
“Welcome to the Brave New World.”

Thank you, nice to be welcomed. 🙂

And I am embarrassingly aware that even “careful”, “limited” acceptance of adverts probably doesn’t keep the miners away. For the products that I use a lot I’m also happy to pay up (usually a one-off fee rather than subscription); as I said developers need to earn a living (speaking as a retired sort-of developer). And I want to help keep the products alive.

Clive Robinson • February 3, 2024 9:23 AM

@ Robin, lurker, ALL,

Re : Honest trade and the dishonest.

“For the products that I use a lot I’m also happy to pay up … as I said developers need to earn a living”

Nothing wrong with either point and the basis for honest trade that has been going on for as long as we have records for.

However,

“And I am embarrassingly aware that even “careful”, “limited” acceptance of adverts probably doesn’t keep the miners away.”

There is no law that I’m aware of that says you have to accept adverts.

Therefor forcing them on people is at best “unlawfull practice” if not actually illegal in some places.

What the data miners and brokers do is illegal in quite a few places, unlawfull in many and considered unethical and immoral in nearly all places.

Yet they are almost universally alowed to persist…

Which tells us,

“The system is broken by those who are immoral, unethical and happy to behave unlawfully and illegaly to achieve self benifit at the expense of others who have not consented and would not consent if given fair choice.”

The fact that this group includes legislators, their aids, civil servants, and others payed from the public purse with guard labour turning a blind eye tells us just how badly broken the system actually is.

Oh and all involved with that group “blaim the victims” of their activities. They claim it is our fault, thus they are entitled to do what they do.

That is they lie almost exclusively and feign being heros and victims of their faux-stories such that they can manipulate and control without morals to gain benifit.

Such are defining characteristics of psychopaths, narcissists, sadists, and worse. That is people for whom the conventions of socoety they see as things to be exploited for their benift and pleasure.

It’s a matter of recorded fact that there are only two ways to stop such people.

1, Constrain them indefinately.
2, Exorcise them from society compleatly.

As their numbers are apparently growing the second method may become the prefered method in the not to distant future.

Untill such time, one method to constrain them is to “out them” completely such that every one they try to have contact with is given fair warning of what they are.

Back in times past when people did not travel such constraint was effective they got shunned and in effect turned out to at best the fringes of society.

These days unfortunately they do not have to physically travel to evade censure they can move virtually and thus move faster than any reputation system can keep up with them.

Thus we need ways to exorcise them from the information world and it’s mulplicity of societies.

The only ways we know how to do this currently are undesirable because of the effects it has on the honest portions of society.

Thus it is an area that needs more research not just technically but anthropologically as well.

PaulBart • February 5, 2024 10:13 AM

@Clive

Da Comrade. You get VAZ healthcare, ZAZ shelter, and GAZ food. Except you central committee member, you get foreign Benz for your exceptional needs.

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”
― Margaret Thatcher

I guess I need to retire from these comments, as the Marxists here love erasing facts that don’t fit their narrative.

Winter • February 5, 2024 10:30 AM

@PaulBart

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”
― Margaret Thatcher

Mrs Thatcher did not give the data that showed that.

For example, the USA runs up a bigger debt (129% of GDP) than the UK (97.1%) and Germany (66.1%), which are both a multiple of, say, Sweden (32.9% of GDP).

So much for the Social Democrats running out of money.

Clive Robinson • February 5, 2024 12:06 PM

@ PaulBart,

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”

Oh dear, you quote “Mad Maggie” Thatcher…

You know she was actually quite mad don’t you, it’s why even here most ardent of followers/colleagues turned on her and flung her on the garbage heap of history.

Her most visable failing was her issues of cognative bias, there was no realy stupid idea she would not embrace if it agreed with her mad preconceptions.

The most notable of which nearly caused civil war…

All through history people have talked about “Poll Tax” which is a tax on the individual. Not on what people earn (income tax) or aquire (many such as inheritance tax) or size/value of property (rates, property tax). History always points out a salutary lesson, it has always led to not just political blow back, but actual civil violence and insurection, including amongst other unpleasantness immolation, defenistration and worse ways for stupid or mad leaders to meet their demise. It is a very real form of “political suicide”.

But Mad Maggie just knew she was different and it would all work for her she just had to be stronger than idiotic “strong-men”… Well the Poll Tax Riots showed not just her but others in her political party she was wrong… She wanted to “double down” on it, others more sensibly took steps to get rid of it and her as quickly as they could.

There are many reasons why even ordinary everyday people joined in with “Ding dong the Witch is dead” when it was anounced the old baggage had gone on what can only hope was a one way ticket to infamy and an object less that “strong-man nonense” and moronic stupid, are both likely to get you felled if not immured.

Quoting Mad Maggie as if it is a good thing, does you no favours in the eyes of anyone who can actually think and learn from history.

I guess you will be quoting Ayn Rand next and the moronic manifesto from within “Atlas Shrugged”, at least it makes neo-con mantras look less moronic. After all there are worse things than being a deluded “tea baggie”. Which begs the question did your parents make you march up and down in your short trousers carrying a placard back then (kind of like they did in China with “The little Red Book”). Or was it the worst gulp ever, after all who wants to get a mouth full of the taste of a salty bag?

https://www.politico.eu/article/us-pledges-support-for-uk-after-boffin-suggests-putting-salt-in-tea/

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